Who Should Take This Training

Staff in assisted living facilities (ALFs), day activity and health services (DAHSs) or programs for the all-inclusive care for the elderly (PACEs), and people who provide care in the home, including home health workers, direct service workers and family caregivers.

A Brief History

The original Oasis training was created in 2009 to help three long-term care facilities in New England who were experiencing high turnover, high levels of resident-to-resident and resident-to-staff incidents, and recurrent findings of immediate jeopardy. Core staff training had simply not kept pace with the rapidly changing world of long-term care and staff burnout was at an all-time high. The approach proved very successful and participants named the training ‘Oasis’ to express the calm they felt when using their new skills.

The initial success of the Oasis curriculum encouraged Massachusetts and Vermont to pilot the curriculum in more homes which led to its use in several other states as well. When CMS launched the National Partnership to Improve Dementia Care, Oasis was recognized as one of the resources to help reduce unnecessary antipsychotics.

In 2015, Dr. Wehry introduced Oasis in Texas as part of the Texas Reducing Antipsychotics in Nursing Homes (TRAIN) program. It struck a chord with the participants. The question was: could we “Texas-ize” it? We did! Over 6 months through regional Dementia Training Academies, 950 participants and 360 nursing homes were introduced to Texas OASIS.

At several of these academies people asked: “Can we use this in assisted living or even in home care?” We thought, “Why not?” In 2017, we tailored Texas OASIS to home and community based services for regional training events and again rolled it out around the state to 540 participants and 250 organizations, including homes.

To sustain these efforts, this online version of Texas OASIS HCBS was created. It can be used as a refresher course and resource center to support longer-term results throughout Texas. For those unable to attend an event, the site lets participants learn at a pace, time and location that works for them.

You can feel proud of your participation in this training. Thank you for all you do.

How To Use This Site

• This website will work on a computer, tablet or smartphone.
• Select the icon in the upper left to open the menu.
• Use the menu to select the module you wish to review.
• Use your browser's bookmarks to save pages for quick reference.
• View, download or print module documents and slides from each module's conclusion page.